*After the Readings* Before now I have seen speaking on the
Internetcompared to unburdening your heart on the wall of a public
toilet. I
realise now that it is simply like everywhere else: the world is humanity's
public toilet. This might be a bog but we're all treading in it anyhow. It
is a non comparison, not a nonpareil. And all our arts, and precious
culture. Recently I started to emulate Bertrand Russell in prison and read
the Bible from start to finish. King James version, Oxford edition, with
Apocrypha, if I was going to suffer, at least let it be with a sense of
cadence. And of course, like Russell, I've found it like an introduction to
the liturgies of hell. I've only got so far as Deuteronomy but it's already
quite clear that this is a production of psychopaths. But the monsters are
not 'God' our imagined creature but us. It's enough to make you believe in
New England. We wrote the Bible. We are the psychopaths. God is innocent,
and entirely imaginary. All the blood is on our hands. At least as far as
the biographies go. I might add here I go to church quite regularly.
Nothing else could propel me to that but my utter disbelief. The murderous
jealous mediocre monster JHVH is your daily familiar. And families of him
everywhere. There is something to be said for whistling. Or playing the
harmonica. When I was young, I mean very young, four, five, six, seven, I
was bullied monstrously, almost everytime I set forth from home. I used
hold an angry court in memory with my assailants but now I realise they
were trying to do me a favour; anything to dissuade another from this hell.
You just keep your head in there partner.
--
David Joseph Bircumshaw
**
Website and A Chide's Alphabet
http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw
twitter: http://twitter.com/bucketshave
blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/
Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.com
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